Thursday, January 15, 2015

A Seasonal Poem

Amongst all his poetry the following is one of my favorites.The Snow-StormAnnounced by all the trumpets of the sky,Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,Seems nowhere to alight: the whited airHides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feetDelayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sitAround the radiant fireplace, enclosedIn a tumultuous privacy of storm.Come see the north wind's masonry.Out of an unseen quarry evermoreFurnished with tile, the fierce artificerCurves his white bastions with projected roofRound every windward stake, or tree, or door.Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild workSo fanciful, so savage, nought cares heFor number or proportion. Mockingly,On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,A tapering turret overtops the work.And when his hours are numbered, and the worldIs all his own, retiring, as he were not,Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished ArtTo mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,The frolic architecture of the snow.

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About Me

The bookcase of early childhood is a man's companion for life. The arrangement of its shelves, the choice of books, the colors of spines are for him the color, height, and arrangement of world literature itself. As for books which were not included in that first bookcase--they were never to force their way into the universe of world literature. Every book in the first bookcase is, willy-nilly, a classic, and not one of them can ever be expelled. - Osip Mandelstam